Former NASA chief
Sean O'Keefe and his son are among the survivors of the fatal plane crash
in southwestern Alaska late Monday that killed five people, one of them
ex-senator Ted Stevens nine, according to news reports.

The plane was
carrying nine people when it crashed Monday night near the town of Dillingham,
Alaska, National Transportation Safety Board officials said.

O'Keefe is reported to
have survived the crash, according to a Reuters report, which cited an unnamed official
with the defense contractor EADS North America, where O'Keefe serves as CEO. EADS
officials, however, have not confirmed O'Keefe's status officially.

?Sean
O?Keefe, EADS North America?s CEO, was a passenger on a private aircraft that
crashed in Alaska last night," said EADS North America spokesperson Guy
Hicks in a statement earlier today. ?Local authorities are reporting that there
are survivors and a rescue operation is underway."

The NASA watchdog website
NASAWatch said a family member has confirmed that O'Keefe's son Kevin was also
on the plane and that both survived.

Earlier today, a
statement released by a Stevens family spokesperson said the 86-year-old former
senator for Alaska had died in the crash, CNN reported. The condition of O'Keefe
remains unclear.

A National
Transportation Safety Board team is en route to investigate the crash and
issued an announcement on the crash.

"At
about 8:00 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time, a DeHavilland DHC-3T (N455A) crashed 10
miles northwest of Aleknagik, Alaska," NTSB officials said. "Reports
are that 5 of the 9 persons on board died in the accident."

Former
NASA chief

O'Keefe
served as NASA Administrator ? the agency's top job ? between 2001 and 2005. He
was appointed by President George W. Bush and served as the 10th chief of the
space agency.

O'Keefe was succeeded in 2005
by Michael Griffin, who led the space agency until 2009. The current NASA
chief is Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle commander.

Stevens
served as a senator for Alaska until 2008, when he lost his re-election bid and
was convicted on corruption charges, though the case was later thrown out,
according to MSNBC. At the time he was the longest-serving Republican senator.

O'Keefe and
Stevens have a long friendship that predates O'Keefe's tenure as NASA chief,
and were longtime fishing buddies, according to the Associated Press and CNN.

NASA head
office tenure

During his tenure at
NASA, O'Keefe led the space agency through both triumph and tragedy. In
February 2003, NASA's space
shuttle Columbia was destroyed during its reentry to Earth. O'Keefe oversaw
efforts to cope with the trauma and get the space agency back on track.

In January 2004,
O'Keefe made the controversial decision to cancel a planned space shuttle
mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope (that decision was
later reversed by his successor, Michael Griffin, and the STS-125 Hubble
servicing mission did fly in May 2009).

Under O'Keefe's
leadership, NASA also successfully landed the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and
Opportunity on the Red planet in January 2004. Those spacecraft went on to
become the longest running missions on Mars.

In honor of his
service to NASA, an asteroid discovered in 2003 was named after O'Keefe ? the
space rock 78905 Seanokeefe (2003 SK85).

After resigning from
NASA in 2005, O'Keefe served as chancellor of Louisiana State University.

"The LSU
community is deeply concerned about Sean and his family at this difficult time
of uncertainty. Sean is a valued member of the LSU family and our thoughts and
prayers are with him," said LSU chancellor Michael Martin in a statement.
"We also offer our prayers to everyone affected by this tragedy."O'Keefe later
moved on to become the CEO of EADS North America, a subsidiary of the European
Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).

Prior to heading up
NASA, O'Keefe served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget,
where he oversaw planning and management of the federal budget during the
administration of President Bush.

Before that, O'Keefe
was the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at the
Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in
Syracuse, N.Y. He also directed the National Security Studies program, a joint
department of Syracuse and Johns Hopkins University.

Earlier in his
career, the first president Bush appointed O'Keefe as Secretary of the Navy in
1992. In 1993, President Bush and then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney presented
him with the Distinguished Public Service Award.